Province’s largest antique tractor collection went to auction

A rainbow of red, orange, yellow, green, blue, black and white tractors stretch out, row upon row, in front of Gordon Brindley, owner of Brindley Auction Service.

For Brindley, known to many as Harry, each piece marks a moment when the eclectic mix of diesel, gas, propane and steam tractors, lawn tractors and horse-drawn farm wagons, buggies and implements caught his attention and his bid.

His private antique collection includes more than 500 gas, diesel, propane and steam tractors. 

Why it matters: The auction aimed to raise money to support two care facilities in Huron county.

Brindley’s collection of vintage iron is one of the largest in Ontario, possibly in Canada, and includes rare and one-of-a-kind items. There’s a limited production white 1950 demonstrator McCormick Farmall and plow, a Field Marshall, a complete Lantz Bulldog, and a White American with only 30 hours on the engine and plastic still on the seat, which should fetch a good price.

“The (Farmalls) are real hard to find. It’s the only one I’ve ever seen in this area, and when I bought it, I bought it no matter what,” said Brindley, adding it likely cost $4,000 to $5,000, and he has the matching white plow to sell. He said it would be quite a coup if a collector could win both.

Another rarity in the collection is the AllWork steel wheel, cross-engine tractor he bought more than 25 years ago in Eastern Ontario. Brindley said it doesn’t look like much, and it needs some restoration work – much of which he’s already sourced – but it’s more than 100 years old and easily fixed, unlike today’s tractors. 

“They can’t see that in a museum or the plowing match,” said Brindley with a grin. “There’s not very many around, and you have to have a favourite somewhere along the line.” 

Clinton Small, a collector from the Campbellville area, said the Lanz Bulldog, which drives well, will be a huge draw because it is out of production, and Brindley’s is in perfect working condition. 

“This particular one has got a heck of a patina on it. A lot of them you’ll see painted up again. They’re usually a gunmetal grey or blue, sometimes a really deep burgundy,” said Small. “I’d say this is late 1920s, early ‘30s because it’s got the cooling fins on the side, which is newer.”

Brindley’s tractor comes complete with the lantern used to warm and pressurize the “hot bulb” engine, lube oil crankshaft and the steering column used to turn the engine over – most of which remain stored until after the auction. 

Out of the approximately 500 tractors on display, Brindley’s next two favourites are a 20 Cockshutt and a 98 Massey with a rare “Jimmy diesel” (GM diesel) engine instead of the standard Minneapolis Moline engine predominantly produced through the 1950s.

“I’ve had them for a long time, and I took them to the shows, the Blyth steam show even,” he said. “I had the whole series of Masseys, 95, 97 and 98s gas, diesel and propane, which came out of Western Canada.”

The units were scattered across several properties until he finally amassed the collection at Base Equipment in Lucknow for the auction. Once everything was there, even Brindley was startled at the volume. 

“Where in Ontario are you going to see (a tractor auction) bigger than this?” said Bob Skerritt, a long-time International collector, who has gone up against Brindley a time or two at auctions. 

He and Brindley went to Indiana together for auctions around the same size, but few featured personal collections this large. 

“I’m at the age I should be selling, not buying, but you never know, I might see something that says, ‘take me home’,” he said. 

Skerritt has owned a Super M propane, a Super MTA propane and a Super M cotton tractor but said the propane tractors don’t seem to carry the same pull as diesel or gas. 

“(Propane tractors) are not native to Ontario,” he said. 

Doug McLaughlin made the trip from Shedden to walk the grounds and see if he could find anything to catch his fancy. 

A retired farmer, McLaughlin has four tractors in his collection and said his wife wouldn’t be pleased if he came home with another.

But there’s always the exception to the rule, and for McLaughlin, it would be finding the 1970s-era Ford 5000 he farmed with starting out. 

“I wish now I’d kept it. I’d love to find my old tractor, but I have no idea where it went,” McLaughlin said. “If it’s not the same one, it don’t mean nothing to me. I’m looking for the very first one.” 

Back then, the Ford was priced right, had good power, flat top fenders and a flat deck, which was a bonus because he loved standing up while driving.

“My wife, when we were first married, she’d ride on that fender lots of times,” McLaughlin said. “She taught school. She’d come home from school and ride on the fender. We didn’t have any kids at the time.” 

When McLaughlin got the John Deere bug, he traded the Ford against a green machine but harboured some regret.

There was a hopeful tension in the air when he lifted the side panel and peered at the serial number. 

“Naw, that’s not it, but it’s a C, that’s the same age. Mine was C288186,” he said after seeing the serial number began with a C3. “I loved that tractor.”

While it wasn’t “the one,” nostalgia kept pulling his eye back to the bright blue and white tractor standing tall beside him. 

With her perched on the flat top fender, the draw of one more ride might be enough to sell the idea to his wife, even if it isn’t the original. 

Brindley is using the auction to give back to the community by donating 100 per cent of the proceeds from the sale of an International Harvester A1 Tractor and a Farmall 300 to support the Wingham and District Hospital and the Huron Hospice Residence.

He said between the auction and the donations from an open house held Aug. 19, it could generate more than $10,000 to split between them. 

The auction was hosted online Aug. 24 and 25.